How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining data.

Using graphs and charts is great for making technical data a whole lot easier to grasp.

You can present data using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with numbers, trends and relationships easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret the information.

Graphs and charts help you explain complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

If you want to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create beautiful and updatable charts and graphs to your pages and posts that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Resizes dynamically for mobile users

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply insert the files and an image into your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bars and pie charts in WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or access and download the WP Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed appealing charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps.

The plugin uses Google Visualization API to render charts, which support cross-browser compatibility (adopting VML for older IE versions) and cross-platform portability to iOS and new Android releases, and are based on pure HTML5/SVG technology (adopting VML for old IE versions), so no additional plugins are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of charts optimized for all your data visualization needs, including:

• Line chart
• Area chart
• Bar chart
• Column chart
• Pie chart
• Geo chart
• Gauge chart
• Candlestick chart
• Scatter chart

The plugin is also flexible and customizable, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your web design. Several options are available for each chart that let you customize their look and feel.

Additionally, charts are rendered using HTML5/SVG technology to provide cross-browser compatibility (including VML for older IE versions) and cross platform portability to iPhones, iPads and Android devices. Your site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

How To Install WP Visualizer

Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main menu …

In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …

Locate the item in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard menu …

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to the plugin library.

Plugin Configuration

To add a new chart or graph to the plugin’s library, click on the ‘Add New’ button …

An image gallery displaying all of the built-in types of graphs available will come up on your screen.

Select the type of graph or chart you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …

The graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row includes the column headings.
• Your second row includes the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply refer to the sample CSV file supplied with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload the CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will now import your data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that explains how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, see the article below:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have chosen, the plugin will display various customization options and settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you complete control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

• General Settings – Configure settings for the chart’s title, font styles, tooltip, and legend.
• Pie Settings – Create 3D pie charts, draw slices counterclockwise, set the text content displayed on the slice, create a “donut” pie chart, rotate the chart’s “start” angle and set the slice border color.
• Residue Settings – Set the ‘Visibility Threshold’ (the slice relative part, below which a slice will not show individually.), ‘Residual Slice Label’ (the label for the combination slice that holds all slices below slice visibility threshold, e.g. “Other”), and ‘Residue Slice Color’.
• Slice Settings – Customize the ‘Slice Offset’ (how far to separate a slice from the rest of the pie), and ‘Slice Color’.
• Layout & Chart Area – Configure the layout (total size of chart) including the width and height of the chart as a number of percentage, background color for the main area of the chart and the chart border width and color, and the placement and size of the chart area (where the chart itself is drawn, excluding axis and legends).

Once you are satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

Your graph or chart will be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to insert graphs and charts into your WordPress pages very easily …

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their type …

After adding a graph or chart to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …

Visualizer Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a page or post is very simple.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you want to insert your visual element into your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the chart or graph to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode into your content …

Once you have added the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

After the post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your post or page displays your item in where you have added the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes adding interactive graph data in WordPress really efficient.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add attractive and dynamic pie charts and graphs to WordPress.

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